Paid for heated storage picked up full of water

[oldjeep]

4 minutes ago, vanamp said:

I bought a cheap round top shelter for $700 this year.  I  had cold storage at dealer one season for $700 and boat came out looking like someone did donuts on a dirt road with it.  I don't expect the outer tarp to last more then a few years but after this winter I already broke even.  

My baby sits in the garage.  The truck lives outside. 

[Nitrousbird]

On 5/18/2019 at 2:57 PM, oldjeep said:

My baby sits in the garage.  The truck lives outside. 

Same with mine.  My truck could live in the garage, but the wife insists her car gets the other spot.  Just need to build a 2nd garage...the 225' driveway required to do so is my hold up, as that adds up freaking quick!

[JeffC]

On 5/18/2019 at 6:42 AM, riot138 said:

They said a contract would be in the mail. I contacted them three times via email and never received a contract only an invoice.

 

I am no lawyer, but assuming you still have those follow up emails, and can prove that they were sent to the correct address, I would think it would be extraordinarily difficult for them to enforce any terms of a contact that you didn't sign, or even receive.   I would expect that your (or your insurance company) should be able to recover the full amount of damages attributable to their negligence.   The plug being in might be a concern, but I would certainly pursue aggressively.     Even if there was hard damage, it would seem like you could recover the cost of a complete cleaning/detail back to the condition that you left it with them. 

The thing that would worry me the most is lagging issues... for example, a failing alternator sometime this season.   

I keep my under covered storage (only thing I could FIND here other than sitting out in a field somewhere).   I visit it frequently throughout the winter to make sure nothing is going on - because I noticed the boat parked two spaces away from me had cover damage after a big wind storm.     

[barefootpaul]

Sucks, you are justifiably angry.

As a guy in the storage business I like to remind folks that they are renting space. They are not paying me to be responsible for their stuff. Weather, theft, act of God, doesn't matter. Your stuff is your stuff I have no responsibility for your stuff. This is true in nearly every case. Insurance companies wont let the property owner incur the liability. Best case you get a refund for the storage fee as an act of good faith. Your best option there is to ask nicely. Someone threatened is going to dig in their heels.

File the claim. Good luck!

[riot138]

1 hour ago, barefootpaul said:

Sucks, you are justifiably angry.

As a guy in the storage business I like to remind folks that they are renting space. They are not paying me to be responsible for their stuff. Weather, theft, act of God, doesn't matter. Your stuff is your stuff I have no responsibility for your stuff. This is true in nearly every case. Insurance companies wont let the property owner incur the liability. Best case you get a refund for the storage fee as an act of good faith. Your best option there is to ask nicely. Someone threatened is going to dig in their heels.

File the claim. Good luck!

In a sense I agree with you.  The problem I have is the staff notified me that my boat would be moved into storage by them the day I dropped it off.  I messaged them in April asking when the boats in storage had to be picked up.  They told me they would like to have all boats out of storage by June.  I would assume you being in the storage business would not accept payment to a rent a space and then move your customers stuff into an environment not agreed upon.  For example if you agreed to rent an indoor space for electronics and then moved them outdoors I would find it hard to believe you wouldn't be liable for the damage.  The manager told me that they were moving other boats out of storage and there were times in the spring mine was left outside for days and then put back in.  They also told me that it was possible the boat may have sat for a week or two until it was put away.  Before leaving the marine store I went inside and asked when my boat was getting put away and if I had to sign anything.  They told me today and no a contract will be in the mail.  They said I would be invoiced in the new year when things were slow so that was a source of revenue which I am thinking is why they didn't give me the paperwork to sign then or an invoice would have to be attached (just an assumption).  In hindsight yes dealing with a new storage company the plug should have been out but in the past I have stored with the plug in no problem and the boat didn't see a drop of water for six months because it was stored indoors the way I paid for.

Edited May 20, 2019 by riot138

[JeffC]

1 hour ago, barefootpaul said:

Sucks, you are justifiably angry.

As a guy in the storage business I like to remind folks that they are renting space. They are not paying me to be responsible for their stuff. Weather, theft, act of God, doesn't matter. Your stuff is your stuff I have no responsibility for your stuff. This is true in nearly every case. Insurance companies wont let the property owner incur the liability. Best case you get a refund for the storage fee as an act of good faith. Your best option there is to ask nicely. Someone threatened is going to dig in their heels.

File the claim. Good luck!

Good insight, and that is PRECISELY what my storage contract says, which is why I insure my boat for a stated replacement value.   However, if his boat sat outside and incurred the damage outside the covered space that they were supposedly renting to him, then I would THINK that would give him a leg to stand on...    Especially since they never provided the contract that spelled out the terms. 

Interesting position for me to take, because I have never pursued anything like this, I pretty much find "hitting the legal lottery thing" to be massively distasteful.   @barefootpaul your comment about asking nicely has always been most successful for me... unless the other party is unresponsive. 

[Bozboat]

23 hours ago, barefootpaul said:

Sucks, you are justifiably angry.

As a guy in the storage business I like to remind folks that they are renting space. They are not paying me to be responsible for their stuff. Weather, theft, act of God, doesn't matter. Your stuff is your stuff I have no responsibility for your stuff. This is true in nearly every case. Insurance companies wont let the property owner incur the liability. Best case you get a refund for the storage fee as an act of good faith. Your best option there is to ask nicely. Someone threatened is going to dig in their heels.

File the claim. Good luck!

 

"This is true in nearly every case. Insurance companies wont let the property owner incur the liability."

"Your stuff is your stuff I have no responsibility for your stuff"

Just thinking here....Some general thoughts, not specific to any one location, but generally sound. 

Insurance does not limit people or businesses from incurring liability.   You can buy insurance to cover your liability or not.  Insurance is a way of funding damages from liability.

In a bailment arrangement, bailor (aggrieved boat owner "ABO")  takes his beloved boat to the bailee (storage_dude).  As each party benefits from the exchange, ABO gets storage and storage_dude gets money;   Storage_dude owes ABO a duty to provide ordinary reasonable care for the beloved boat.  Storage_dude certainly shouldn't get away with going Ferris Bueller on things he is receiving money to keep in storage.

As the OP mentioned that this is an oral agreement and not a written agreement, storage_dude has some exposure as he is not in possession of an agreement limiting his liability,

So the question would be,  did storage_dude take care of the beloved boat in the manner a reasonably prudent manner?

Storage_dude better hope that he does not get a jury of Malibu Boat Owners who paid for indoor storage.

Edited May 21, 2019 by Bozboat

[barefootpaul]

8 minutes ago, Bozboat said:

"This is true in nearly every case. Insurance companies wont let the property owner incur the liability."

Just thinking here....Some general thoughts, not specific to any one location, but generally sound. 

Insurance does not limit people or businesses from incurring liability.   You can buy insurance to cover your liability or not.  Insurance is a way of funding damages from liability.

This is very true. What I meant was that an insurance company will unlikely sell a product that cover the storage of a lessors (ABO's) personal property. It is very hard to quantify risk in this situation. However, every insurance company will sell insurance to a boat owner to cover losses such as this.

[smileysteve]

9 minutes ago, barefootpaul said:

What I meant was that an insurance company will unlikely sell a product that cover the storage of a lessors (ABO's) personal property. It is very hard to quantify risk in this situation. However, every insurance company will sell insurance to a boat owner to cover losses such as this.

And the personal insurance may in turn file suit against the storage company to reclaim some of its expenses

[Bozboat]

6 hours ago, barefootpaul said:

This is very true. What I meant was that an insurance company will unlikely sell a product that cover the storage of a lessors (ABO's) personal property. It is very hard to quantify risk in this situation. However, every insurance company will sell insurance to a boat owner to cover losses such as this.

Yes, as SmileySteve points out. ABO's  boat insurance would likely cover the damage.  However, ABO's insurance pays ABO for damage caused by someone else, ABO's boat insurance company would have the option to sue the person responsible for the damage.     So here, ABO could make a claim on his boat insurance and ABO's boat insurance company could sue storage_dude for reimbursement.

Edited May 21, 2019 by Bozboat

[RyanB]

Terrible situation. I hope it works out for the best for you. 

I also would be worried that the storage facility can not or will not pay for the damage. 

I understand your thought process on mice vs plug. I assume you pulled the batteries?  Why else wouldn’t the auto bilge pump have come on?

Stories like this reaffirm my decision to build indoor storage for my toys years ago. 

[riot138]

1 minute ago, RyanB said:

Terrible situation. I hope it works out for the best for you. 

I also would be worried that the storage facility can not or will not pay for the damage. 

I understand your thought process on mice vs plug. I assume you pulled the batteries?  Why else wouldn’t the auto bilge pump have come on?

Stories like this reaffirm my decision to build indoor storage for my toys years ago. 

Thank you.  I do to.  Best case scenario is they go through the boat and fix anything that was damaged at no cost to me.  Yes, batteries were pulled and put on a tender all winter.  Before I even found out about this I bought a house that has a garage to store the boat in. 

[oldjeep]

3 hours ago, Bozboat said:

Yes, as SmileySteve points out. ABO's  boat insurance would likely cover the damage.  However, ABO's insurance pays ABO for damage caused by someone else, ABO's boat insurance company would have the option to sue the person responsible for the damage.     So here, ABO could make a claim on his boat insurance and ABO's boat insurance company could storage_dude for reimbursement.

Yup - that is what you pay your insurance company for.  Pay for your loss and go after anyone that they might deem responsible.  Same deal as when some bonehead hit my wifes car in a parking lot.  My insurance co took care of it and then got their money and my deductible back from the other persons insurance a couple months later.

Edited May 21, 2019 by oldjeep

[BigCreek]

Incredibly awful. Really, as long as you avoided jail time in this situation, I'd call it a win. 

If some jackwagon did this to my boat, bail money would have been necessary. 

Edited May 22, 2019 by BigCreek

[riot138]

I called the dealership that stored the boat this morning.  They said they would clean the interior of the boat for free.  I told them I can do that myself and that my concern is all the components/fluids that were under water.  I asked if I bring it in they can go through everything that would have been affected from the water sitting in it.  They agreed. I would really hate to create an insurance claim until I know roughly what needs to be fixed especially if the dealership will fix it themselves.

[Eagleboy99]

I will be curious to see how the mould on the seats (and inside the cushions) is addressed.

[REHinH20]

On 5/20/2019 at 10:30 AM, JeffC said:

I am no lawyer, but assuming you still have those follow up emails, and can prove that they were sent to the correct address, I would think it would be extraordinarily difficult for them to enforce any terms of a contact that you didn't sign, or even receive.   I would expect that your (or your insurance company) should be able to recover the full amount of damages attributable to their negligence.   The plug being in might be a concern, but I would certainly pursue aggressively.     Even if there was hard damage, it would seem like you could recover the cost of a complete cleaning/detail back to the condition that you left it with them. 

The thing that would worry me the most is lagging issues... for example, a failing alternator sometime this season.   

I keep my under covered storage (only thing I could FIND here other than sitting out in a field somewhere).   I visit it frequently throughout the winter to make sure nothing is going on - because I noticed the boat parked two spaces away from me had cover damage after a big wind storm.     

Bad thing about not signing a contract is that you now can't say THEY agreed to this, just like you can't say YOU didn't agree to it either.  Double edged sword to swing there!

[oldjeep]

9 minutes ago, riot138 said:

I called the dealership that stored the boat this morning.  They said they would clean the interior of the boat for free.  I told them I can do that myself and that my concern is all the components/fluids that were under water.  I asked if I bring it in they can go through everything that would have been affected from the water sitting in it.  They agreed. I would really hate to create an insurance claim until I know roughly what needs to be fixed especially if the dealership will fix it themselves.

You need to start a claim since you have had a loss.  You need to protect yourself from all the things that can crop up in the future.  

[Eagleboy99]

^^^  This.

[Bozboat]

42 minutes ago, REHinH20 said:

Bad thing about not signing a contract is that you now can't say THEY agreed to this, just like you can't say YOU didn't agree to it either.  Double edged sword to swing there!

Not everything is a double edged sword.  Lots of situations have a certain presumption or status unless waived in writing.  In a common benefit bailment situation,  the burden should be on storage_dude to show ABO agreed that storage_dude did not have to exercise ordinary care.  Sometimes it is better to not have a written contract, but that depends on what presumptions are in place in that jurisdiction.  Even if you left a valuable F150 at the local Hyatt Resort Valet and they have the small print disclaimer on the claim ticket, the valet/hotel still has some liability if they don't act in a reasonable manner.  The valet takes it out mudding on the golf course, they are going to have to pay.

BUT....this is just a general point not specific to any particular location that might have a law in place changing the general idea to something else.

[riot138]

1 hour ago, Eagleboy99 said:

I will be curious to see how the mould on the seats (and inside the cushions) is addressed.

Now your worrying me.  The mold on the outside wiped off very easily.  Didn't even think there would be mold in the foam behind the  vinyl.

[Ndawg12]

Random thought, who's providing the mice with a ladder?  Or are they really good gymnasts?

[Slayer]

26 minutes ago, Ndawg12 said:

Random thought, who's providing the mice with a ladder?  Or are they really good gymnasts?

Not to entirely derail this thread, but I just laughed out loud in my office at this!!  Absolute classic!!!  Oddly enough, I do believe that mice are fantastic gymnasts. 

 

 

[oldjeep]

1 hour ago, inlandlaker said:

Not to entirely derail this thread, but I just laughed out loud in my office at this!!  Absolute classic!!!  Oddly enough, I do believe that mice are fantastic gymnasts. 

 

 

If a raccoon can scale a skyscraper I'm pretty sure a mouse can walk up a wall or boat

[Eagleboy99]

6 hours ago, riot138 said:

Now your worrying me.  The mold on the outside wiped off very easily.  Didn't even think there would be mold in the foam behind the  vinyl.

Who knows what evil lurks in the back of vinyl? (Apologies to Walter B.Gibson)  All the more reason to be talking to your insurer.